Just to let each of you know that on Monday an article is supposed to be in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Geocaching! I don't know who the photo series is to be with but the writer Bob Shaw told me to watch on Mondays paper ...I'm not sure what section!

The editors delayed the story, because there was so much other news going on, apparently. The story's fine, photos are fine, and it will wait until there is a suitable day for it, i.e., when there aren't a lot of other stories going on._________________Joined: 16 Dec 2002

"My husband thinks it's the most moronic sport ever," said Nola Cutts, co-chairwoman of the state Geocaching Association, who goes geocaching with her children twice a week. "But he's into fly fishing, so I guess we all have our own moronic sports."

Although the majority of the article is rather negativly one-sided, I laughed out loud when I read that part!!!!

LOL -- You know what? I talked for the better part of an hour with this reporter about my philosophy of "leave no trace" and my "trash out" activities and the progress MnGCA was making with having people pick up garbage on the trails and how I thought geocaching was environmentally friendly in that regard..... You have all heard this from me before

Toward the end of the interview we were JOKING about how my husband hates to geocache and how I hate to fly fish. So what quote does he use, my speech about recycling or fly fishing? AAAAKKKKK!

BTW -- did you notice that Ian's age is not given and Rob's age is not given, just mine -- go figure.

After reading the article again, I really think it boils down to trying to create drama between geocachers and the parks. I suppose drama sells better than reading a story about what Geocaching is really about.

I suppose drama sells better than reading a story about what Geocaching is really about.

You don't sell newspapers by playing up drama. Is it still a quarter for a daily Pioneer Press? How many papers would they have to sell to make a difference on the bottom line? Papers make most of their money on advertising. I don't care if the writer talks about how lovey dovey everybody in the MnGCA is or if he talks about how a participant litters the metro area hiding his/her caches, it won't make a difference in the daily sale of papers. Making it out to be such a controversial topic with devistating results will only make the writer look like a hack.

Glad to know Centris is 43 years old, btw. Ages are often used as biographical characteristics, whether it's relevant or not. Using the age of only half of the adult subjects seems rather sloppy. An editor should have made sure the story was uniform, one way or the other.

Last edited by hardware on Tue Jun 03, 2003 9:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

I should clarify my opinion. I think the writer's perception is that people would be more interested in a battle a la "parks vs geocachers" rather than information about geocaching.

I think it's pretty clear that he's after the drama when he writes:

Quote:

Three park officials walk up. Will they kick him out? Not today.

...and pay attention to the carefully chosen words here:

Quote:

...officials in other parks, faced with an onslaught of geocachers, are scrambling to develop restrictions.

I understand how newspapers make money, and thank you, but I also understand how some writers choose to please their editors. Would the Pioneer Press put an article on the front of secton B about how cool and interesting geocaching is, and how geocachers even help clean up city, county and state parks? *shrug* Who knows.

I think that the majority of the public would rather find a [almost faticious] battle between this unknown group of techno-nature-hippies vs the parks that *everyone else* enjoys.

Quote:

Ian Stevens checks his GPS unit, as rain drips off the end of his ponytail.

That's the kind of story that your regular soccer mom that takes her kids to her local park and the weekend sportsman that goes up to the park reserve hunting would be interested in reading about, excuse my stereotyping. (Boy, I'm making friends, eh?)

The writer isn't a hack - he's pulling legitimate information together, but he presented it in a dramatizing way.

In the end, the writer has to write stories that people are interested in. Therefore, sell. Even if the only person he's selling it to is the editor.

O.K. but what about this..... You would think that at least an reporter would be very careful on having his facts 100 percent straight. KB is not from SSP. I am.
I'm sure he got this mixed up since I would believe that I'm the first one that contacted him after I got the email from him.
I did an phone interview with him but I keep telling him that I was new and most of what I do know is from many of the GOOD articles that are on geocaching.com. Must be the reason I never got quoted.
I even gave him the link to these articles. Most of those talk about all the good things Like GITO etc.
I told him I didn't want to be the main voice of good facts and maybe he should contact KB and Centris.
I did tell him about how I found out about it from the Travel Channel and how they said it was a great family adventure game.
He then asked If he could go out with me for photos I said sure but I want my neices and nephews to go with. The all of a sudden it was really hard to set up a time and date with him. He Backed out of 3 days. I do believe in the Conspircy therories and maybe this is just one of those.

BTW how many of you have ever ran into an Park official doing grunt work in the rain?

bob shaw wrote to me that he should have been more careful in identifying ages. glad he agrees. he wanted to show that geocaching spans many age groups, which for the most part he did, admitting he did so in a confusing way.

i also shouldn't rule out that anecdotes about "cache in trash out" may have been included in his story, but cut to fit the way a pagination editor wanted the story to look. i don't know if that happened, nor do i care, but many changes could have been made after the story was out of bob's hands.

i have no idea how much background bob had before he started the article or how much he learned about it before interviewing people. either way the final result was sloppy.

Last edited by hardware on Tue Jun 03, 2003 9:24 pm; edited 1 time in total